Supernatural suspect fled Halloween murder

On Halloween night, 1978, Joel A. Vernon, 23, owner of the Cave Bar in Leesville, Louisiana, stood in the back room of the club with employees James Regallis, 22, and Timothy Bray, 19. The trio stood over Private First-Class Michael E. Melcher, a Madison, Wisconsin soldier stationed at Fort Polk, pressing him to repay his debts, according to police. However, relatives of the bar owner later insisted something supernatural prompted Vernon’s meeting that night with Melcher.

When one of the men pointed a gun at Melcher, he tried to stand, resulting in a minor fracas in which Melcher received a small cut on his head. Concerned that events might grow loud enough to attract bar patrons, Vernon, Regallis, and Bray escorted Melcher outside and into Vernon’s station wagon, before driving him to the Vernon Parish sanitary landfill.

At the landfill, Vernon attacked Melcher, striking him in the stomach with a stick one and a half to two feet long and about an inch in diameter. One of the henchmen pulled Melcher’s jacket halfway down his arms, immobilizing him as the three men took turns kicking and beating him with the stick and a baseball bat-like club six feet long and two inches in diameter.

The bat prompted the trio to play baseball with Melcher as the ball. Vernon umpired, Regallis pretended to pitch, and Bray swung the club, striking Melcher until he was out. After tiring of baseball, the team moved to Russian roulette. Regallis and Vernon each fired shots above Melcher’s head.

When their games ended, the men left Melcher lying on his back, rolling his head from side to side and moaning as they returned to the Cave Bar for a celebratory round of whisky.

A short time later, Bray and Regallis returned to the landfill in Vernon’s car, accompanied by another 19-year-old soldier, Private First-Class Dale Slama, originally from Colton, California.

Melcher’s belt lay on the ground near his feet. His unbuttoned shirt was still wet with perspiration, he felt cold and did not appear to be breathing. Slama took Melcher’s money and identification from his pockets before he and Bray drug the victim into the woods nearby. Regallis set fire to the area where the beating occurred, attempting to conceal the blood before the three reported back to Vernon at the Cave Bar.

On November 2, 1978, hunters discovered Melcher’s charred and beaten body in the woods outside the landfill.

Detectives Harold Stork and Jody Dowden approached Vernon for questioning in connection with the Melcher murder as he sat eating in a cafe in Leesville. Frisking Vernon, the detectives found a .32 caliber revolver on his person. They advised him of his rights and took him into custody for carrying a concealed weapon. At the Vernon Parish Sheriff’s office, he signed a pre-printed rights form as well as a consent to questioning form, indicating that he fully understood his rights, that he was willing to answer questions, and that the arresting officers made no threats or promises.

The officers presented Vernon with photographs of the crime scene and Melcher’s body, showing the severity of the beating, the burns on the body, and the condition of the victim’s clothing.

Detectives conducted an interview, and Vernon gave a five-page written statement typed by a police officer containing full Miranda warnings and Vernon’s signature on each page. Police officially charged him with murder after he provided the written statement. Following his arrest, Vernon gave a tape-recorded statement, essentially recounting the confession in his written statement.

Initially charged with first-degree murder, a grand jury indicted him for second-degree.

At Vernon’s trial, the Defendant’s mother testified on direct examination that Joel Vernon had not been a rowdy or violent child and that, while in the armed services, he served as assistant to a chaplain. On cross-examination, after stating that her son had attended church while growing up, the prosecutor asked her to specify which church he had attended. She answered “Temple B. Zion,” a Jewish temple. The prosecutor used the testimony to show that the mother taught the defendant the difference between right and wrong and that he could not be insane.

Following a failed insanity plea, Vernon served a life sentence in Louisiana State Penitentiary in Angola and Dixon Correctional Institute, a prison facility in Jackson, Louisiana. Having exhausted all other appeals, Vernon appealed to the United States Supreme Court in 1985, but the high court refused to consider his case.

However, had the mother testified to all she had told police, the trial, or least the discussion of sanity, may have taken a different turn. Vernon’s mother told police that her son believed the victim, Michael E. Melcher was a golem, a creature formed from swamp mud, brought to life by ritual incantations and sequences of Hebrew letters. Her son, she said, told her he had summoned the golem two days before Halloween to prevent the New Orleans mafia from collecting their perceived share of the Cave Bar’s earnings.

Louisiana courts sentenced Vernon, Regallis, and Bray to life in prison. However, police report, someone huge beat their accomplice to death.

Out on bond, Private Dale Slama died in November of 1978 while the others sat in jail awaiting trial. Some working the case suppose the mob killed him. Others, considering the mud covering the soldier’s body, suggest something else altogether. The homicide remains unsolved today.